Sunday, May 16, 2010

Second Marathon was a Good One!

I thoroughly enjoyed running in my second marathon in Cleveland. The weather was great with the temps staying in the 50s throughout the race.

I finished the race in 4:18:48. I’m really happy with this time. I feel like I redeemed myself after running in my first marathon in December at the Dallas White Rock Marathon. I know it was my first marathon, but I wanted to do better than my 4:37 finish. I gave into the fatigue at the end of that race. This time I pushed through and gritted through the last 4 grueling miles.

Not bad results above… 1,276th out of 11,541 marathoners. 934th out of 5,108 men and 155 out of 728 in the Men 40-44 age division. First half at 2:08:09 and the last half at 2:10:39. The last half was pretty good since I had 2 long breaks.

As mentioned in my previous post I was planning on running negative splits. I did OK with this, but it was harder than I thought to stick with running the first 8 miles at a 10:00 minute pace. I was quicker than originally planned, but I didn’t think 10-20 seconds would hurt me too badly. I did come up short in the last miles in trying to hit my target of 9:00 minute miles, but all in all, I’m OK with that. I ran this marathon so much better than the first one.

I listened to my Android phone for most of the race except for when there were bands or other musical happenings. It was cool to see a group that were like Stomp. I wanted to listen to the Black Eyed Peas station on Pandora, but it lost connection after a few miles. So I switched to Briana’s Playlist for most of the race. After that, I listened to another playlist that brought me through. For the last couple of months, I’ve been listening to music while running. It gives me a different type of focus and minimizes the noise of the pain in my legs. :)

I only stopped when I saw my family at miles 6, 13 & 21. I also had to stop a couple of other times. I had a long stop when I had to take care of some potty business on mile 18 and a longer water stop.

It was great having family support at the race. Gary, my brother-in-law would call me to find out where I was and give me updates to where they were going to be. He would tell me where they were going to be and so I would tell myself to hold on and I’d be able to take a short break when I see them.

I saw my family again at mile 25, but I didn’t stop. I just ran by and gave them 2 thumbs up as I ran by. I willed myself so hard to keep running I was going to stop at this point.

Once I finished, I gave Ursula a call and cried like a little girl. I told her that I wished that she was there so that I could fall into her arms. I missed her so much. Yes, I get emotional at the end of running a marathon. It’s a part of the experience.

Now for the details. My mile splits were as follows:

Mile 1: 9:59

Mile 2: 9:43

Mile 3: 9:49

Mile 4: 9:31

Mile 5: 9:34

Mile 6: 9:39

Mile 7: 9:39

Mile 8: 9:40

Mile 9: 9:40

Mile 10: 9:34

Mile 11: 9:41

Mile 12: 9:24

Mile 13: 9:56

Mile 14: 9:27

Mile 15: 9:26

Mile 16: 9:21

Mile 17: 9:23

Mile 18: 12:38 (long potty break)

Mile 19: 9:33

Mile 20: 9:27

Mile 21: 9:30

Mile 22: 11:29 (visit with the family)

Mile 23: 9:28

Mile 24: 9:44

Mile 25: 9:48

Mile 26: 9:22

Mile 26.52: 8:58

I’m glad that I got an opportunity to run this race. I would definitely run it again if I get the chance.